Ann Arbor eatery expands hours to offer lunch
Mercy Kasel lets her Burmese background influence the dishes served up for lunch and dinner in the Bell Tower's restaurant.
Angela Smith | For AnnArbor.com
Mercy’s Restaurant, at 300 Thayer, inside the Bell Tower Hotel, recently opened its doors for lunch per the requests of its regular patrons.
Mercy Kasel says she has had a passion for food for as long as she can remember. Kasel worked as a cook in college, and continued working in the food industry after graduating from college and moving to Ann Arbor in the 1970s.
She remembers starting an Asian catering company with Marty Wolf, the Earle's first chef, in 1978. Kasel and her husband also owned Kerrytown Bistro until it closed in 2003.
Steve and Mercy Kasel opened Mercy’s in 2010, and Mercy was able to incorporate her own Burmese- and Asian-influenced dishes into the menu.
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The lunch menu is focused on a small but varied selection of small-plate and large-plate items, which include a selection of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free meals. Flatbreads, dumplings and ginger marshmallows are all among the menu items that are made fresh in house.
Mercy’s also is offering a two for $15 lunch special for Restaurant Week.
“It's a great place for lunch because it's quiet,” Mercy notes after the first week of lunch service. “And if people are in a hurry, they can pre-order and the food would be ready for them when they walk in.”
Angela Smith is a freelance reporter for AnnArbor.com.
Comments
gerald brennan
Sat, Jan 19, 2013 : 11:56 a.m.
Let me try again, Editors: Most of your readers get "& # 8 2 1 7; " instead of the apostrophe character in the titles of your stories. This is amateurishly annoying. The ampersand and apostrophe symbols (along with many others) are reserved characters in HTML and cannot be used directly in the code without first being 'escaped'. The W3C page on HTML entities explains it in very good detail. You need to fix this.
leezee
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:44 p.m.
I find it odd that there seems to be so many stories connected to Mercy's when there are so many other restaurants in the area. Must be a connection involved that we are unaware of?
Jessica Webster
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 6:47 p.m.
We ran a review back in December, but I can't recall any other recent stories here about Mercy's.
dsponini
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:16 p.m.
I ate there. Once. I thought it was horrible and very expensive, but it was right after they opened...maybe they've improved?
Jessica Webster
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:32 p.m.
Restaurants are often not at their best when they first open. When I am disappointed the first time I try a new restaurant, I often try to give them another chance a few weeks or months later.
LA
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 2:30 p.m.
It sounds lovely. Hope it's a success an look forward to trying it soon.
TheDiagSquirrel
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 1:57 p.m.
Ann Arbor Eatery? That's my favorite restaurant! I especially like the descriptive and alliterative name
kfolger
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 1:45 p.m.
The chicken and waffles are delicious!
Angela Smith
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:36 p.m.
That's what I tried when I ate there last week. Warning, it was a large plate item and I had plenty to bring home. They were yummy and well priced, but 1bigbud, they were not free.
Jessica Webster
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 3:13 p.m.
I'm going to have to try those!
seldon
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 1:09 p.m.
When you do stuff like this, could you at least include the name of the restaurant in the headline?
Angela Smith
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:32 p.m.
As author, and reader who enjoys reading the comment section, I appreciate this entire thread of feedback.
seldon
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 5:26 p.m.
We clearly both have a busy day of complaining about trivial things ahead of us, since you took the time to complain about my post and now I'm complaining about your response.
seldon
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 2:42 p.m.
What use is a headline like "Ann Arbor eatery expands hours to offer lunch"? This story is trivial to begin with, that headline is equivalent to "Ann Arbor man changes jobs" or "Ann Arbor family takes dog to vet." Or "annarbor.com commenters complain about each others' posts".
sigdiamond
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 1:46 p.m.
Yeah, how are we supposed to know which restaurant you're talking about? By clicking the link and reading the second sentence of the article? I don't have time for that. I've got a very busy day of complaining about trivial things on the internet ahead of me.
Bob Heinold
Fri, Jan 18, 2013 : 11:54 a.m.
Another Ann Arbor day, another Ann Arbor restaurant!